Personal communication devices have become ubiquitous in every day life not only for busy adults but for young people as well. Additionally, the demand for increased functions performed by such devices has also increased. Thus, it is not enough to just perform more functions quickly. It is equally important to perform functions that are more relevant to the user. The more personalized the functions, the more useful the personal communication device becomes.
One method of improving the efficiency of receiving information is by using RF tagging systems, more particularly RFID wireless systems. The RFID wireless systems use RFID labels known as tags or transponders that can contain varying amounts of information, and a controller unit usually referred to as a reader or interrogator. RFID interrogators communicate with the tags through the use of radio frequency (RF) energy. RFID wireless network principles are described in a publication entitled “Radio Frequency Identification: A Basic Primer,” published by the Automatic Identification Manufacturers (AIM) web site (http://www.aimglobal.org), Oct. 23, 2001 and fully incorporated herein by reference.
Most recently, the use of RFID systems in personal communication devices have been proposed for improving device functionality. However, none of the proposed systems adequately allow for personalizing functions in a personal communication device when an RFID tag is scanned by an RFID reader. More specifically, with the known systems it is not possible to select or create a shortcut to functions in a personal communication device when a signal from an RFID tag is received.
Thus, it would be desirable to provide an apparatus, system, method and computer program product for creating shortcuts to functions in a personal communication device using RF tagging systems, such as, for example an RFID system.